Many galleries have impressive permanent collections, but no one keeps theirs as fresh and relevant as the team at The Hepworth Wakefield. Martha Alexander explores A Living Collection
ARRESTING PORTRAITS AND BRIGHT, candy-hued sculptures next to nudes in nature or dystopian tales of conflict, emerging talent alongside established geniuses: welcome to Gallery One at The Hepworth Wakefield.
This beautiful space, which overlooks the River Calder in West Yorkshire, stands for both permanence and change. Here, spoils from a collection which was started exactly a century ago, will always be represented but will also be in frequent flux. Known as A Living Collection, the gallery’s trove of art comprises more than 5,000 works – from sculptures by the gallery’s namesake Dame Barbara Hepworth, to paintings by contemporary and emerging artists working today. It’s rehung on a yearly basis.
It began as a collection for Wakefield City Council and has continued to grow and evolve under the Hepworth’s care since the gallery opened in 2011.
A Living Collectionmakes a point of showing new acquisitions alongside older works. There’s always a Barbara Hepworth and a Henry Moore making for a sense of connection, continuity and union between the past and the present.
“We are thrilled to now be the custodians [of A Living Collection] and to be acquiring work by contemporary artists that speak to contemporary concerns, politics and directions in the art world and also to activate the works that are now historical in our collections,” explains Laura Smith, Director of Collections and Exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield. “It also allows us to think about the legacy of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, who were both locally born and educated, and how Yorkshire has such a strong artistic foundation in sculpture, especially when it comes to thinking about bodies in landscape. We are excited to look at those works in dialogue with newer works.”
One of the many things that sets A Living▸ Collectionapart from other permanent collections in UK galleries is that the works acquired for it are absolutely not going to be squirrelled away in storage with no telling when they might next see the light of day.
